Telegraph consumer expert Jessica Gorst-Williams helps one reader with
an issue over American shares.

I am hopeful you may have sound advice that will enable me to sell the following shares which appear on the Nasdaq stock exchange. On October 17, 2001 I bought shares in a British company named Staffware. On August 5, 2003 I purchased on the London Stock Exchange further certificated units of stock in the same company.

This company was subsequently taken over by Tibco Software and I received a share certificate. I have been attempting to sell the shares which has proved impossible by any British brokers. One initially indicated it could sell the shares and I sent the certificate in January 2012, duly signed on the reverse but this was returned, stating it was not able to oblige. I have contacted the registrar Computershare, based in England and America, who have not solved the problem for me.

Since my original purchase was of English origin, I had no hand in the decision to own American shares. Unless you can unravel my predicament I fear this substantial sum will be forever lost.

JC, Derbyshire

You say you had given up hope of ever selling what had evolved into this American holding of shares.

Computershare had explained that it was not registrar for the firm at the time of the takeover. It said it did not deal in US share certificates from the UK for companies for which it is not the registrar in America, which is why it couldn’t help.

In the end, despite having distanced itself from the matter earlier, ironically it proved crucial in sorting this out. Further to your approach to me, stockbroker Robert Kilner at Redmayne-Bentley of Leeds accepted the challenge which in the end, because of the complexity of the deal, took some time to complete.

Mr Kilner first tried to process the sale by “dematerialising” the stock – turning it into a digital holding.

However, this procedure was scuppered by the fact that the previous broker you had instructed had asked you to endorse its firm’s name on the back of the certificate, effectively appointing that firm as attorney. Nothing though, for whatever reason, came of this firm’s efforts, or lack of them, to sell the shares.

Later, when this firm was asked to provide a release from its connection with the holding, it seems it wasn’t able to. In the end, with the assistance after all of Computershare UK, Computershare US and a particularly helpful individual at Tibco itself, Mr Kilner was able to take the shares into his firm’s control and sell them for you.

After the deduction of fairly minimal commission you have in the region of £6,000. Redmayne-Bentley said holding shares in US certificated form is, in itself, not necessarily a problem although it is a less common way of holding shares these days. You say you are delighted to have the money back that is rightfully yours after meeting so many brick walls.